


Keeping it Together (Barely)

by LordRebeccaSama



Category: The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Child Death, Complete, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I thrive on it, Kinda Dark Bob Parr, Not a Happy Story, Oneshot, So much angst, Violence, YOU'RE GOING TO HATE ME, but also like much worse too, so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 07:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordRebeccaSama/pseuds/LordRebeccaSama
Summary: They didn't survive the missile strike and subsequent crash.  Bob had no reason to continue fighting, until he does.I'm sorry, did you think this would be a happy story?





	Keeping it Together (Barely)

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the Incredibles a couple weeks ago and this is all I wanted to read. Well, you know what happens when you don't find the story: you write it yourself.

Bob hung limp in his restraints. What use was even trying?  His family was dead.  He would die on this island, and no one would care.  Just another Super lost to the world.

He distantly registered the door swooshing open and running footsteps coming towards him.

“Bob!” Helen shouted. Oh good, he was starting to hallucinate. He glanced up.

Helen was wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt, sneakers and her hair was immaculate.  She came to a secret base on a rescue mission… in her civilian clothes?  She was frantically looking over the command console, seeming to try and figure out which button to press.  When she did press the red button, she did it with too much confidence, like she knew it was right.  As she turned towards him, the light reflected off her hair and it lightened for a moment.

The restraints dropped him on the floor and he remained there.  Helen ran up to him.  Something was  _off_ with her footsteps.  They sounded almost too solid.  She always found it hard to stay the same size and he knew it took considerable effort on her part for the more visible parts of her, so feet weren’t usually an issue, and thus her steps usually sounded uneven.  This wasn’t his wife.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” fake-Helen said, reaching to help him up.

His eyes hardened.  Whoever this was thought they could fool him.  Well, then fuck them.  He had nothing to lose.  His family died in that plane crash. He caught her under the chin and lifted her up off the ground.  She choked and the illusion faded, revealing Mirage.  Huh, so she  _was_  a Super.

“Did you think you could fool me?” he asked lowly.

 “Wha-how di’ you--”

Bob tightened his hand. “You know, living with someone for twenty years, married for eighteen, and working with them for longer, you learn how they walk, how they move, how they  _behave_.”

Mirage gurgled.

“You made a grave mistake going after my family,” he snarled.

He crushed her skull and dropped the body.

“ _Buddy’s_  death won’t be as merciful.”

\--

They saw him coming. There was no way they didn't. Bob did just kill their second in command, after all.

Edna foresaw being shot at, and the suit was bulletproof (most of them were), and his stronger than normal skin protected his head. What use was super strength if the skin broke every time he did something?

He didn't hold back. Fists went right through soft tissue and bone like butter.

In the old days, he held back his strength when dealing with underlings and non-mechanical beasts, but not today. Today he killed every living being that got in his way.  After the third patrol he ripped through, he was left alone to continue his trek.

By the time he got to the command center, they had barricaded the door and stood ready with guns pointed at the door. He punched straight through, hitting three people and injuring another. The two uninjured henchman shot at him until their guns clicked.

He grabbed the older of the two and choked him.

“Tell me where Buddy is.   _Now_.”

The younger henchman (couldn't have been older than twenty-five) looked frantically between his coworker’s purpling face and Bob.

“The longer you stall, the longer your deaths will be.”

He swallowed nervously. “Headed into the city to stop the robot.”

“Get me there.” Bob dropped the other guard, who laid on the ground and took deep coughing breaths. “And get me a way to destroy the robot.”

\--

In the end, he left them both alive, but anger still pulsed in his veins. The plane ride back to the city gave him ample time to study the remote, and when that got boring, he tried to distract himself with revenge plots and how to make Buddy suffer.

It helped. If he let himself get swept up in the grief of losing his family, he'd lose motivation.  He couldn't afford to do that.

The plane landed a few blocks from the robot. It was missing an arm, but that didn't seem to faze it.

The robot smacked Buddy, and he went flying. It crushed Buddy's gauntlet a second later. Lucius slid by, trying to penetrate its body with his ice, but was unsuccessful. Bob launched a truck at the robot, bringing its attention away from his friend and to him.

“Bob, what's going on?” Lucius shouted, landing near him and taking in the site of his friend.

Bob glanced down at his ruined suit.  Blood, viscera, and other bodily fluids covered his hands up to his elbows and his feet and ankles.  Not to mention the large amount of blood splatter broken up by slight impact marks from bullets hitting the suit.  He made quite the site.  Thank god his suit was red.

“I'll explain later.” Bob took off running. He had one shot at destroying the robot.

The people that built the robot were smart. While they gave Buddy the remote to control it, they kept a kill switch under wraps. They knew it was smart and might outsmart Buddy. The problem? The device must be set on the robot then activated. Thankfully, it didn’t have to be inside, but it would do maximum damage if it was.

So, Bob ran.

He ran straight at the robot, which shot at him, but when he got too close, it tried to smash him. Bob grabbed an arm and pulled. The robot started to roll towards him, retracting the arm. Perfect. Bob slapped the thin device to the arm, primed it, and let go. It contracted into the body and picked up speed. He braced for impact and pressed the button on his wrist. The device beeped once and sent an EMP blast into the depths of the robot.

The EMP blast caused the power source to overheat. The robot bulged and exploded, sending a storm of debris into the air. The ground shook and Bob flew backwards, landing in the water feature.

He climbed out, shaking the water from his face and stalked over to the remains of the robot. It was dead. Good.  He punched it with all his might to make sure.  He vaguely noticed that his impromptu swim washed the gorier bits of blood and viscera off him.

Lucius ran up, panting. He had a line of blood dripping from his forehead and was holding an arm stiffly.

“What the fuck, man?”

“Where's that fucking asshole?”

“Who?”

“The one who sent the robot. Where'd he go?”

Lucius shrugged. “Sorry, man. I don't know.”

Bob growled, picked up the biggest piece of robot he could find and threw it into the water as hard as he could.  It made a large splash, sending water onto the concrete around the pool.  A crunching noise came from the bottom of it.  He didn't know or care if it was the robot or the pool that made the noise.

“Whoa, what's wrong?  You look horrible.  What’s going on?”

Bob ignored him and stalked over to a cowering citizen. “Car keys. Now.” She glanced at Lucius, unsure, but the thunderous look on Bob’s face meant that she gave them up without a fuss. She pointed at a silver SUV.

He didn't know what he was doing, but something told him to go home. See the empty house with its now too many rooms. He would collect anything he wanted to keep, then break the whole house into pieces. Then he would hunt down Buddy.  The rat couldn't hide forever.

Lucius didn't argue and got into the car.

They were speeding down the highway when Lucius spoke up. “What happened?”

“They’re dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“Helen. The kids.” He held onto the anger. He couldn’t let himself feel anything else. Not right now.

Lucius froze. “What?” he breathed.

Bob’s hands tightened on the wheel, threatening to break it off. “They were flying ….to come rescue me, probably, and he sent a missile at the plane.”

“That fucking monster. All of…”

“I don’t know. She said children.”

“I’m gonna kill the motherfucker.”

“Get in line,” Bob growled.

Bob sped up when he saw a jet hovering over his neighborhood, over his house!  They got to his house and leapt out of the car.

“What is happening?” Lucius questioned.

High above, Buddy was struggling with a screaming infant.  He yelled and held something on fire at arm’s length.  He yelped and tilted downwards, as if holding a heavy weight. It dragged him down.

The crying started again, and then grew angry.  Buddy’s flight became erratic, an entire boot falling to the ground.

Bob could only watch in horror as it seemed like his remaining child fought for his life, crawling on and around Buddy’s body, pulling at him and his clothes.

Jack-Jack broke loose and fell towards the ground, crying.  Oh no.  He couldn’t watch his last kid die.  What to do? What to do?

“Snow!”

“What?”

“Make snow.  A lot of snow.  Now!” he roared.

Lucius glanced quickly up at Jack-Jack and got to work.  It wouldn’t be enough.  Jack-Jack wasn’t slowing down!

The snow was ten feet high when a small body impacted, causing a snow storm to explode around the men.

Bob froze for a second, grit his teeth, spun, and grabbed the car in the driveway.  He launched it up at the plane with all his might, blowing up the front end of the jet.  If he couldn’t get his ultimate revenge fantasy, at least he could destroy Buddy in an explosion.  A fitting end.

Buddy struggled with his single jet boot in the turbine of the jet for a few seconds before a second explosion rocked through the suburb.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Lucius and he huddled together.  The smoke cleared and an ice dome covered them, protecting them from the flames and debris.

They broke free and stood in Bob's ruined front yard with its falling ash, fire, and snow.  The house was in ruins, just like his life.  What was Bob going to do now?  A giggle broke through the silence.

“Jack-Jack?” Bob choked out.

Lucius waved away the falling snow, and sitting in the center of a small crater filled with rock and snow sat a perfectly fine little baby in a diaper.

“Oh my god,” Lucius gasped.

Bob rushed forward and scooped up his child.  He cuddled him close and kissed his face, rubbing his hand gently over the baby soft hair.  Thank God.  Oh, thank God.  He still had one child. His youngest survived.  He still had a piece of Helen.

It seemed like hours later, but could only have been minutes, that the fire department, the police, and the Supers Relocation Office were out at his house.

They put out fires, asked questions, and took statements.  The SRO wasn’t happy with him, but couldn’t do much since he wasn’t listening to a word they said.  They would contact him again once he was a settled.

Lucius took Bob back to his house in the city, and set him and Jack-Jack up in the guest room.  He sat heavily down on the bed and clung to Jack-Jack, holding him close, soaking up the warmth from his one remaining child.  Despite being on fire and having steel skin for a few minutes, he smelled like baby powder and that baby shampoo they bought—no sulfur or iron at all.

Lucius rested a hand on his back as support.

“What are you going to do now?”

Bob was silent for a moment. “I don’t know.  I don’t have a job.  There’s,” he choked back a sob, “there’s no one to watch Jack-Jack during the day.  I don’t know.” Lucius rubbed his back in a soothing manner.

“We’ll figure it out, man.  You have support from me and Honey.  No matter what.  We’ll get through this.”

“They’re  _dead_ , Lucius.  What am I supposed to do now?”

Lucius looked just as lost as Bob felt. “Live.  Be a good dad for Jack-Jack.  Just… just don’t check-out on us.”

That did it.  His hold on his emotions broke and Bob sobbed, bowing his head over Jack-Jack cradled in his lap.  Lucius’ hand shook against his back and a glance up at him showed tears flowing down his cheeks, as well.

Jack-Jack gurgled against his chest and held up a soggy toy in offering, trying to comfort his Dad.

Bob smiled lightly and gently took the toy, rattling it around.  Jack-Jack made a squealing noise and reached for the toy.  Bob relinquished it back to his son.

“We’ll be okay,” he whispered, looking down at his son.  He had to be.

_The End._

**Author's Note:**

> I will not apologize for art. How much do you hate me? Tell me in the comments! (If you think it needs any other tags, let me know, too!)


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